this is a 2024 halloween special page! i've been reading a bunch of manga of dubious quality. here's a roundup. i'm relying a lot on this GL vampire manga stack. this is lower effort than usual because the manga is mostly mid and i have very little to say about them...
as i said in the main page, lesbian vampires come in two groups, predatory girlies that are the trope proper, and vampires who are lesbians. most of the manga girls i've seen belong to the second group, with an abundance of the twillight-type. bummer tbh, and i wonder how much of this is a side effect of looking for the GL / yuri tag.
yeah. this is a whole other universe of lesbian vampires. feels like most of these are school settings. now, i'm not one to dismiss school settings outright. some of my favorite manga out there needs its teenagers to live — adolescence is an ugly time and i like it when fiction externalize ugly thoughts and dynamics (save me welcome back alice...) — but the vast majority isn't really doing any of this, and even stuff i like could well be a college or office setting. there's a whole world of fucked dynamics to explore...
as usual, contact me with recommendations, this page is focused on manga because they are easier to search for (and read on mihon), but i'm definitely not opposed to other graphic novels and comics etc. books and movies as well, though i most likely will not have a dedicated book page. even this was more of a one-time thing.
anyway, welcome to the bleak bleak world of vampire yuri.
due to the nature of serialized media, this will be split into sections, and i'll keep dates / number of chapters on stuff (assume translated to english unless noted otherwise). i'll use english titles and [name lastname] order.
original title: Utsukushiki Vampire
chapters: one-shot
as a 1970s carmilla adaptation this is as close to the roots as it gets. and it's preeeeetty mid. like many of those. it hits pretty much all beats of the book at a breakneck pace, for better and worse (shoutout for this scanlation having a warning at the start for the racist caricature).
original title: Hiro no Hana
chapters: one-shot
it's a twenty pager. not much to say.
chapters: 11
uhh it's been a year since i read this one, but i bothered to rank it a 5/10 on myanimelist so that should tell you something. thog don't caare.
chapters: 13
um. textually this one's actually about werewolves but she sucks blood so who give a shit, she's a vampire (also called fine like in vampire in the garden, a real good lesbian (coded) vampire anime). the manga got axed so it effectively doesn't have an ending; there's a "hey here's kinda how i'd make the last chapter", it's almost apologetic. maybe i should have put this in the incomplete section but eh.
anyway it's a dark fantasy setting that could have been pretty interesting! maybe i'm sensing a pattern where they all start off seemingly full of potential and then flop, so maybe it's better that they never get completed...? fine becomes a vampire werewolf after overdosing on a magical drug, and becomes a government magical-drug-dealer-hunter afterwards. she's in a fucked up death pact contract type thing where if she becomes human again her werewolf uhh partner gets to kill and eat her. me and who...
chapters: 46
it's teen romance time. this one's very much A Fluffy Romance, it can be pretty funny and entertaining, it's kinda just mostly fine? the core plot is just very flimsy, and i don't caaaare about middle schoolers kissing.
it also has the american horror story ghost-creep where they just keep on piling up vampires. it's fine, the cast is interesting enough, it's just kinda funny when this happens. also they're all lesbians. swagful.
chapters: 6
oh yeah baby this is a romcom graphic novel with a butch vampire. it's episodic, mostly very lighthearted and fun while having quite good ero scenes 🐬
while i generally prefer my vampires to be menacing and the stories and tone to be horror or at least gothic, this comic is also definitely my hole it was made for me. the characters are fun and the atmosphere and stories are just damn pleasant, it made my night when i read it. really easy recommendation, thank you so much loren for your email!
original title: Michiwarikusa Monogatari
chapters: 5/12
aw man i wish they'd translated the rest of this... it's the post-apocalypse and humans went extinct some time ago, the reasons why are undisclosed in these first few chapters. protagonists are two vampire couples. it's pretty odd how they all survive by feeding on each other's blood; it seems like a perpetual motion machine. it's just slice of life, and i'd argue it's not a vampire story if there are no humans around (vampires as a storytelling device exist in relation to humans), but i'd like to read to the end regardless.
original title: Goshujinsama ni wa Suwasemasen!
chapters: 7 (as of 20 october 2024)
a human maid to a vampire woman who wants to be human again. the tone's quite light, it's overall pretty unremarkable. i'm keeping it around though.
original title: Koroshi Korosare Sankaku Kankei ni Watashi ga Ima kara Hairun desu ka?
chapters: 5 (as of 20 october 2024)
hey man why is this old ass vampire in school, in a setting where supernatural entities are all known and live in harmony. i don't even mean it in an age gap way she just deserves better than high school. free my girl.
anyway this is a fun one... i do like loner highschool girl protags (don't worry about it). it's pretty early on so there's really not much to say. the vampire has an intimidating design which is a nice change of pace from the cutesy shit that seems to be the current meta, and reminds me of maya's funeral procession and 70s shoujo in general. idk this might be good. not a good lez-v, mind, but a fun supernatural yuri.
original title: Eiyuu ni Akogareta Shoujo wa Kyuuketsuki ni Ochitemo Eiyuu o Mezasu
chapters: 6 (as of 20 october 2024)
i hope you can still love me after two back-to-back manga with stupid long titles. this one's dark fantasy, with a duo of vampire-hunting vampires. out of all these it's the one that's actual horror, and very gory at that. i think this could be annoying-edgy but i'll have to wait and see. it shows promise imo, if only for being the most vampire-y... the bar is underground...